I was lucky enough to have been able to use the new Nauticam NA-EM5 housing for the Olympus OM-D E-M5 yesterday. I didn't have the time to do a full review, but managed to have a long dive with it.

I was also somewhat hampered by never having handled the camera above water! The housing and camera's owner Brett Thorpe of UK retailer Divelife and I literally swapped cameras underwater. I should also state at the outset that I have not used any other housings for this camera, so cannot compare it to anything else on the market. So some brief thoughts are appropriate.

The housing is very small and compact, and despite Brett's somewhat "interesting" lighting that was attached to it, seems well balanced in the water. On the left hand was the zoom control, a nice easily found knob. It features two ribbed control dials that allow for separate shutter speed and aperture settings. I find that this is much more user friendly than sharing these controls via a menu or control pad function.

I found the camera's EVF to be quite useful, even with the standard viewfinder. Given that I am used to magnifying and 45° viewfinders, the standard version felt somewhat awkward to use. It is just a question of getting used to it though. I can certainly see how the use of magnifying viewfinders with EVFs opens up a whole new world of possibilities.

The LCD screen can be tilted within the housing (prior to sealing it). This is very convenient for shooting video. The housing's window gives a full view of the entire LCD. The camera's on-screen display (and that of the EVF) gives a great deal of information.

Brett described how he finds accessing the camera's controls easier in the housing than on the camera body itself. Certainly, the controls seem well spread out on the housing. I was not using gloves, and had no issues using any of the housing controls at all. The shutter release is large and sensitive, and the housing has a "thumb groove" that provides a grip on the reverse. When using the tray grips, the shutter falls easily to hand. The video activation lever is quite small, but the lever is designed to stand proud of the housing body, so can be used easily. In fact, all the levers seemed to use this design, which makes them very functional despite their size.

This camera and housing combination would be incredibly well suited to any fast moving action (whale sharks, whales, dolphins, sailfish etc). Swimming with this housing is incredibly easy! Depending on the subject, combining it with small strobes will make a really useful tool. I do not think it replaces an SLR system for most underwater situations however. The camera and housing size is a compromise, and the controls, whilst very good, are not as easy to use as those on a larger housing.

One last though that is not relevant to the housing or camera's performance, and is entirely subjective, but the OM-D E-M5 is one good looking camera! I always felt that Olympus SLRs were iconic, and I think that the designers of this camera have managed to faithfully replicate this in a EVIL camera.

I would welcome any further questions about the housing or camera and will do my best to answer them if I can. Thanks to Brett for his images.

Saw a few big ones (whalesharks) in Malpelo in June. This one was about 50ft long.

Attached Images

Edited by John Bantin, 27 July 2012 - 11:24 AM.

I buy my own photographic kit. Diving equipment manufacturers and diving services suppliers get even-handed treatment from me whether they choose to advertise in the publications I write for or not. All the equipment I get on loan is returned as soon as it is finished with.Did you know you can now get Diver Mag as an iPad/Android app?

That first shot is truly an aw(e)fish, or did you leave out the J unintentionally. Very promising for macro and some of the wide-angle shots I have seen are great too. In terms of being a low-compromise SLR replacement the two remaining items on my checklist are viewfinder clarity and ability to autofocus on fast moving small fish, yellow/bluehead/rainbow wrasse ... Have you used the camera/housing long enough to have an opinion on that?

AF with wide angle lenses is fast with lenses like the 12mm F/2 and 7-14 F/4, 9-18 or 8 fisheye you will not be disappointed.

Macro with the Panasonic 45mm or any macro lens for that matter is as much about technique as AF speed to me. Olympus has announced a 60mm macro coming later this year which should be excellent because it has a switch to limit the lens to a very short range of focus, like 1:1 to 1:1.1, 1:1 to 0.4 meters and so on.

How well the viewfinder will work for you is the same issue as it would be with any DSLR. Some housings like the Olympus E-M5 have no piclup finder (bad for viewfinder), the Nauticam NA-EM5 housing comes with a pickup finder which I am using now (much better) I have on order the replacement LCD window for the NA-EM5 housing which will allow me to use my Nauticam 45 degree viewfinder (excellent). The down sides are EVF's use battery power, I have done over 225 images with the 45 macro and a +10 C/U lens which involves some hunting as it would with any DSLR macro setup. Image quality in the viewfinder to me is as good or better than an APS-C size viewfinder image. If you go to a 35mm size sensor you will have a bigger image in the viewfinder.

Thanks Phil, I read Alex's review but he used it in the Olympus housing and he was not happy about the clarity of the viewfinder in that housing. Good to hear the standard Nauticam finder is already much better with the option to add an external viewfinder, something I will definitely consider. I like to hunt for small fish including some like wrasse, anthias and damsels that are hard to keep in focus even on DSLR, well at least on my old Canon 20D. But I can live with it if that is the only area where the m43 lags noticeably behind its bigger brethren. Maybe the greater DOF of the smaller sensor will be of some benefit to get a higher percentage of keepers.

Can anyone that has used the Olympus E-M5 underwater tell me if they noticed any ttl lag when using this with a strobe. I have read in some other reviews that users have experienced ttl lag with the combination of the official Olympus housing and non-olympus strobes.

Yes, there is a little lag when using the OMD with TTL optical with the YS-D1s. I'd rather not have any shutter lag, but in most cases, it's not so much as to be a problem and the perfect flash exposures every time more than make up for it. When I really can't afford the shutter lag or wait for the internal strobe to recycle, I use the 1/64th power setting on the OMD's internal strobe, and go completely manual. In this case, there is no shutter delay.

Thanx heaps - I don't see the ttl lag as being a major issue as most of my subjects are fairly stationary - was just looking for confirmation on how to deal with this. Any ideas on how the E-M5 handles video under water with focusing?

You will wan to use manual focus with video. Continuous auto focus will hunt continuously, just like almost any other camera. If you are using the 8mm fisheye, just set it at around f8, prefocus on say, your fin, and the depth of field is so huge that you're good to go for most subjects.

Thanx heaps - I don't see the ttl lag as being a major issue as most of my subjects are fairly stationary - was just looking for confirmation on how to deal with this. Any ideas on how the E-M5 handles video under water with focusing?